DAVID BRAGIN
I was born in Brooklyn in 1944. In 1905, my father and his family emigrated from Russia, where his father had been a cantor. Once he moved to the United States, Grandpa Braginsky could not find a permanent position in a synagogue, so instead formed an itinerant choir. When my father was thirteen, Grandpa lost his vision from diabetes. At that point, my father took over handling business for the choir. My father was exploited and mistreated by the choir officials; he told me that this led him to lose all respect for rabbis and Orthodox Judaism. Even so, he retained his love for cantorial music.
My mother came from a more secular background. Her father was a Eugene Debs socialist, yet, when we moved from Brooklyn to Bayside, Queens, in 1950, she became active in Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, and remained so for the rest of her life. Once settled in Bayside, my father helped to found and lead a Conservative temple. It was there that I attended Hebrew School and was bar mitzvah. My father was also active in the Zionist Organization of America, eventually becoming president of the Long Island Region of the ZOA. My parents traveled to Israel several times, and my father learned Hebrew.
Israel was a major presence in our home. A plaque with the Israeli Declaration of Independence hung on the wall. Our living room shelves were filled with objects that bore testimony to my parents’ love of Israel: a green copper menorah and green copper decorative platters and ashtrays from Israel. Our home was also filled with Israeli music. My sister and I would often dance the hora to records by young Israeli folk singers. We particularly loved the album from the 1950s Broadway show Milk and Honey. And, of course, we always kept a bottle of Sabra liqueur in our cabinet and a copy of Exodus by Leon Uris on our bookshelf.
My father was a fiery orator. He used to stand on the stage of our temple selling Israel bonds and giving speeches. Once, even I bought a $100 bond from him. Our family went to the annual Israel Bond festivals at the old Madison Square Garden. This was a perk given to reward my dad when he bought or sold enough bonds. I remember seeing some great performers at these festivals, including Edward G. Robinson and the wonderful Eartha Kitt.
While I was in college, I never thought much about politics. I studied industrial design at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute and was a liberal Democrat, like my parents. At that point, I never really ventured beyond their political positions. When I joined the Peace Corps after college, I started to learn about the war in Vietnam. A USAID worker who had been there, and who subscribed to the antiwar magazine Viet Reports, initiated my political education. I started reading The New Republic (liberal at that time) and subscribed to the influential Ramparts magazine.
While I was working in the Peace Corps in Ecuador, I learned that an Israeli well-drilling team was working nearby, as part of a foreign-aid package. I felt proud that Israel was doing this work. When the Six-Day War began in 1967, I was terrified that Israel’s very existence might be endangered. And when news broke that Israel had prevailed, I was elated at the victory. It was only when I returned to the United States in October 1967 and joined a group called the Committee of Returned Volunteers (CRV) that I began to think politically and internationally. CRV was a group founded on the belief that the moral authority of former Peace Corps volunteers could be effective in opposing the Vietnam War. It was due to CRV that I became active in progressive politics.
CRV’s development was similar to many New Left groups. After sending two delegations to Cuba, CRV began to move from a left-liberal to a revolutionary and anti-imperialist stance. We had a small Middle East Committee, but I was much more involved in Latin American issues at that point. In 1969, while in Cuba—one of the first countries to support the Palestinian movement—I did meet with two Palestinians. But in that era of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorism— the Black September attacks on Jordan in 1970, the 1979 hijacking of an Israeli commercial plane at the Entebbe, Uganda, airport, and the 1985 Achille Lauro ship hijacking—I found it hard to feel sympathy for the Palestinian cause. Also, at that time, I didn’t have the historical background about Israel/Palestine that I have now.
The Yom Kippur War was the first war where Israel truly was vulnerable. At one point, it even appeared that Israel might lose. During this war, I felt there was a struggle for Israel’s very existence, increasing my concern and reinforcing my family’s Zionism. During this time, I no doubt still qualified as a PEP (Progressive Except Palestine). Even so, when my father offered to take me to Israel, I declined; I just did not feel comfortable with some of Israel’s positions. But, in the interest of family harmony, I generally avoided the subject of Israel.
In 1977, my views on Israel/Palestine began to change. My second wife had worked on a kibbutz in the Golan Heights. We had a close Palestinian friend and attended several Palestinian solidarity events in Bay Ridge. But doing dances with the Palestinian flag and chanting anti-Israel slogans felt way out of my comfort zone. For many years, I continued to avoid the subject of Israel, immersing myself instead in other leftist causes.
In 2012, almost by accident, my present wife, Sarah Sills, and I went on a group trip to Palestine, organized by our old friend Sherrill Hogan, who has organized and led many such trips. Prior to the trip, I did some reading but essentially went not particularly well-prepared and not knowing what to expect, but with an open mind and heart.
During that trip, I met and talked with Palestinians and Israelis, both critical leftist and Zionist Israelis. People opened their homes to us and made us welcome. Sarah and I visited the settlement of Maale Adumim, the cities of Nablus and Bethlehem, and the small villages of Aseira and Zubabda. We saw the checkpoints, the Separation Wall, and the horror of Hebron. It was on this trip that my eyes were opened to the reality of Israel/Palestine. I finally began to understand the negative results of Zionism and the underlying mendacity of the Zionist narrative.
We were moved by the open friendliness of Palestinian families, who welcomed us into their homes, and we worked side by side with Palestinian cultivators to harvest their olive trees. For a few days, we worked and stayed with a family in a Christian Palestinian village. We visited the Tent of Nations, a beautiful, self-sustaining farm with the motto, “We refuse to be enemies.” The farm is situated on a nearby hill, beneath a settlement whose members threatened and coveted the owners’ land. The people we met at the Tent of Nations spoke of their desire to live in peace and work their own land, something that is central to the Palestinian narrative, and so rarely heard here.
Probably the most impactful experience for me was our visit to Hebron. There, we were free to walk on the streets that are prohibited to the Palestinians, who have lived in this town for hundreds of years. We were also allowed into the “Jewish” side of the Ibrahimi Mosque, by merely telling the Israeli soldiers guarding the entrance that we were Jewish. It was deeply disturbing, and eye-opening, to see the numerous soldiers stationed there, guarding the fundamentalist settlers who are taking over the surrounding hills and moving into apartments overlooking the Palestinian market, which they shower with feces and refuse. And, of course, we saw the omnipresent checkpoints, manned by young soldiers—teenage boys and girls—armed to the teeth, who allowed us to pass, while detaining and harassing an elderly Palestinian woman carrying a container of olive oil. They opened the container and checked it before letting her through.
Around the start of the 2014 invasion of Gaza, Sarah and I joined and became active in Jewish Voice for Peace. The educational opportunities that JVP has provided have helped to give me a more accurate and sophisticated knowledge of the realities of Israel/Palestine. I believe that the opportunity to meet, talk with, and learn directly from Palestinians has been at least as meaningful for me as has been my exposure to political and historical analysis. Such direct contact has given a human face to the struggle. It has also given me hope that, with the right circumstances and leadership, Palestinians and Israeli Jews could someday live side by side in peace.